He loved European life, and had many friends among the notabilities of English society. He was a fellow passenger on the steamer which carried Dr. Howe and myself as far as Liverpool on our wedding journey. People in our cabin were apt to call for a Welsh rabbit before turning in for the night. Apropos of this, he remarked to me, "You eat a rabbit before going to bed, and presently you dream that you are a shelf with a large cheese resting upon it."
He was much attached to his father, of whom he once said to me, "We don't dare to mention anything pathetic at our table. If we did, father would be sure to spoil the soup" (with his tears, being understood). The elder Appleton belonged to the congregation of the Federal Street Church. I asked his son if he ever attended service there. He said, "Oh, yes; I sometimes go to hear the minister exhort that assemblage of weary ones to forsake the vanities of life. Looking at the choir, I see some forlorn women who seem, from the way in which they open their mouths, to mistake the congregation for a dentist." He did not care for music. At a party devoted to classical performances, he turned to me: "Mrs. Howe, are you going to give us something from the symphony in P?"
He was much of an amateur in art, literature, and life, never appearing to take serious hold of matters either social or political. Wendell Phillips had been his schoolmate, and the two, in company with John Lothrop Motley, had fought many battles with wooden swords in the Appleton garret. For some unexplained reason, he had but little faith in Phillips's philanthropy, and the relations of childhood between the two did not extend to their later life.
His Atlantic voyages became so frequent that he once said to a friend, "I always keep my steamer ticket in my pocket, like a soda-water ticket." Indeed, his custom almost carried out this saying. I have heard that once, being in New York, he invited friends to breakfast with him at his hotel. On arriving they found only a note informing them of his departure for Europe on that very morning.
I myself one day invited him to dinner with other friends, among whom was his sister, Mrs. Longfellow. We waited long for him, and I at last said to Mrs. Longfellow, "What can it be that detains your brother so late?"
"I don't know, indeed," was her reply.
"Your brother?" cried one of the guests. "I met him this morning on his way to the steamer. He must have sailed some hours since."
A friend once spoke to him of matrimony, of which he said in reply, "Marriage? I could never undergo it unless I was held, and took chloroform."
Yet those who knew him well supposed that he had had some romance of his own. To his praise be it said that he was a man of many friendships, and by no means destitute of public spirit.
It was from Mr. Dana that I first heard of John Sullivan Dwight, whom he characterized as a man of moderate calibre, who had "set up for an infidel," and who had dared to speak of the Apostle to the Gentiles as Paul, without the prefix of his saintship. In the early years of my residence in Boston I sometimes heard of Mr. Dwight as a disciple of Fourier, a transcendental of the transcendentals, and a prominent member of a socialist club.